Some have blogged about getting the Grandpa Simpson label to stick to McCain.  McCain is old.  He's tired.  He's crabby.  He's crazy.  He loves Matlock.  If elected, it's possible that he'll attempt to eliminate 2 states...starting with Missouri.   McCain and Abe Simpson are just alike.  So, a small campaign has been started to help make the label stick.  Watch and disseminate...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wW5Eqycf4d4

From the Lancaster Sunday News:
Obama draws thousands to train station
Between 7-10k show up...

From the Harrisburg Patriot-News:
Obama at Capitol: 'We will change the world'
More than 4k show up...

Trade issues score for Clinton in York
About 1k folks jammed onto a street downtown...

From the York Daily Record:
Clinton: I'll bring back peace and prosperity

If the size and make up of the crowds are to be believed, I think Obama might just pull this off...

Except, vote for Barack Obama and let's get this over with.

One can imagine at least two reasons that Hannity wanted Stephanopoulos to ask certain questions. First, the idea was to catch Obama off-guard and get him to either (1) make an overly general statement about guilt by association that would protect McCain from the Keating 5 controversy, (2) make the good visual that Karl Rove has been publicly seeking connecting the weathermen to Obama or (3) both.

The second reason that Hannity and the GOP needed the question asked is more nefarious: the GOP is exploiting the ongoing Democratic nomination fight to enable the soft-racist campaign against Obama to go forward blessed by the liberal white establishment. Certainly, most white middle-class baby-boomers have a gut reaction against blatant racism.  But, subtler forms of racism still exist to be capitalized on by amoral operatives like Hannity and Rove. 

Thanks to Stephanopoulos, the GOP now has cover to push their campaign of racism by another name (RBAN). Rove and Hannity used Stephanopoulos to open the door to their general election strategy. Buchanan will continue to talk about reverse discrimination and try to inflame blue collar America.  And the GOP can now take advantage of the fact that any successful African-American politician in the U.S. is going to have met and/or worked with African-American figures that are controversial to the white community (i.e. most of the prominent African-American leaders from the 60s and 70s). Oh, and it's not coordinated because they're all just making their own statements on television for all to see. No back room required.

That's the way it is folks. Stephanopoulos got played. If McCain wins, we'll have old George to thank for opening the door to the Western Pennsylvania strategy, calculated to bring you 4 more years of Republicans and 40 years of the most conservative supreme court since the early 1900s. He'll get to keep his job, of course. The question is: will you?

Of course, McCain won't win -- Obama will still beat him.

I apologize for some of the vulgarity in this post.  But some issues simply demand it.

More good news from McClatchy:

While working in Iraq as a ''morale coordinator'' for a U.S. government contractor, a Tampa woman says, she was raped by a drunken colleague who secured a key to her apartment from an unlocked storage box.

That was in December 2005, and her attorney said he's unaware of any criminal charges in the case.

Three words: a fucking travesty.  No criminal charges?  How about a reprimand?  You know, a slap on the wrist coupled with a "Now don't you go raping these women again."  It's not just that our own female servicemen in Iraq are getting raped by our own soldiers.  It's that no one is doing a goddam thing about it.  No one has ever even been charged.  Any soldier found to have sexually assaulted one of his female comrades oughta be strung up from the highest branch by his flimsy, tiny cock.

The men that go out there everyday to serve their country have a courage most of us could never understand.  But the leaders overseeing them are the most cowardly, gutless, pathetic, snails to slime their way across the desert.

Statistics show that nearly one out of six women is sexually assaulted.  I guess we've got other priorities, though, like decimating an entire nation and leaving their female population at the hands of fanatical religious zealots more concerned with some damn words written in a book than they are with genuine human life.  Not dressed right?  Kill her!  Must be nice for a sociopath to disguise himself as devoutly religious, or as a loyal patriot fighting for his country's future.

''We've got a problem that justice is breaking down here,'' said Nelson, whose wife Grace and daughter Nan Ellen watched grimly as the women testified about being raped -- and in one case, discouraged from reporting the attack.

There's no such thing as justice in war.  There's just bloodshed and chaos that brings out the darkest elements in man.  For every soldier who will drop his body against an explosive to save his comrades.  There's another soldier who will kill a native for no reason.  This goes all the way back to Joseph Heller's Heart of Darkness.  We all like to think that civilization is something we carry inside of us.  But civilization quickly dissipates in the face of unruleable chaos.  Read Thomas Hobbes.

The agency is starting (STARTING!) an ''effort to increase awareness, enhance accountability and ultimately to deter this kind of behavior,'' said Robert Reed, an associate deputy general counsel.

Nelson, who questioned whether military contracts require companies to provide training on how to handle sexual assault complaints, called the program a ``step in the right direction.''

But, he noted, ``We're in the fifth year of a war. Why wouldn't we have made sure that every member of the total armed forces was aware already?''

Because they didn't think about it, and they didn't give a shit about it.  You can apply the same reasoning to why this war was begun with such poor evidence, planned with such complete incompetence, and turned over to party loyalists rather than the most knowledgeable, competent advisers.

Good work guys.  Those women will be reliving those rapes in the dreams for years to come.  All because you're too fucking stupid to prevent it and too fucking frightened to prosecute it.  These women aren't the boy who cried wolf.  I can assure you, they're not doing this for attention.  Get you fucking act together.  I'm tired of being ashamed of my country.

**For more information on the preveleance of rape in our country, visit the RAINN website.  And if you've been a victim, please seek help.  I've seen it do wonders for people.  It can be a hard step to take, but it's greatly worth it.  And if you believe in this issue, please keep this diary towards the top by recommending it.  It's surprising how quiet women will keep about such a terrible experience.  It's important to know that there are many more out there just like you.**

--Cross Posted at The Left Anchor

The media has been very hard on Obama, and unfairly so, for over six weeks now.
 If you recall, it started when Clinton starting working the refs and throwing the kitchen sink at him in the run up to Texas.


Now, scrutiny and tough questions are fine. My problems with this are several:

- Why "vet" candidates serially, ie one at a time. They were hard on Hillary at the end of 2007 and in January. Then it became Obama's turn. (Will McCain ever have his turn?) I don't get the need to one-sidedly bash and attack one candidate.

- Unfair standards. For the most part, Obama's personal and professional conduct is not in question, unlike McCain and Hillary. It has been his friends and associates. In contrast, Hillary and McCain's friends and associates are not a topic of inquiry. Likewise, McCain's gaffes are quickly papered over, while Obama's occassional slips are beaten to death.

- Does anyone else think this has gone on too long, has been
disproportionate, and amount to the media trying to game the election? Will McCain ever get "vetted" to this extent?

- Call me paranoid but I get the impression that the MSM is not intent on really helping Hillary, who they don't like that much. But on unltimately helping McCain.

Thoughts?

It has been most noticeable in the 24/7 news wars that election coverage brings out more talking and time filling by pundits and reporters as they dispense with other forms of news. They need to fill vast amounts of time with less and less information. Naturally, conversational qualities take over as there are a limited number of topics to discuss. What has struck me in the last few years is that talking heads have a tendency to repeat things that they have heard, many times repeating each other. It is brought into specific relief by the vocabulary we hear. People are very identifiable in terms of their facility with language by their vocabulary.

It is almost like an educational fingerprint. When you hear words that you know, but almost never hear in normal conversation, they sort of stand out. It seems with each election the heads listen to each other, and some “good word” they almost forgot creeps into the lexicon. I find it ironic that the major complaint about the blogosphere is that it is “rampant opinion with little means of verifiable of fact” and yet I don’t see a lot of difference when it comes to television. At least in the blogosphere you can talk back, and it is fairly simple to see who has the conviction of a good argument. On television you are left with little gems just hitting the speaker of your TV with a thud.

In the last election cycle the word was “gravitas”. Now I have known that word since I was a child and my father threw Latin at me all the time – don’t ask me why – but “gravitas” is a word that does not enjoy common usage. When you hear it over and over again it becomes annoyingly repetitive, and you start noticing who is parroting the new word. The new word this year is actually two words, but still in Latin. Saying “bona fides” is the way to preen your intellectual feathers this year, and it has the additional quality of pointing out who actually had a good education by how it is pronounced. I’ve heard a few mangled versions that made me wonder. Are these people not lawyers, or have they simply never been to mass? I am neither Catholic, nor an attorney, but I still get it – must be the musician’s ear. While I find all of this irritating, in a slightly humorous way, there is a phrase that has crept into everyone’s lexicon that has me seeing red. In both the blogosphere and in television coverage, not so much in print, people are quick to throw around the expression “drinking the Kool-Aid”.

At first I didn’t think much of it as people were just referring to the delusional qualities of Obama supporters. Since I am an Obama precinct captain I am well aware that we are not delusional – we just want the agreed upon, current primary/caucas system to decide who wins. From our perspective it is the Clintonites that are delusional. How can you even want a candidacy that is at the expense of everyone else? It is just un-American, or at least delusional. But as I heard this phrase over and over something started haunting me. What was haunting me was my own educational fingerprint, my own understanding of the real meaning of “drinking the Kool-Aid”.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and November, 1978 was the month that we were all left numb. As we experienced the shock of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone being assassinated in Moscone’s office by Supervisor Dan White, we were still ringing from the enormous shock of the Jonestown Massacre. These events happened within nine days of each other. Congressman Leo Ryan had led reporters and a delegation of concerned relatives to Guyana to investigate reports of mind control and imprisonment. The congressman and three others were murdered as they were about to fly home to report their findings. Subsequently, the people following the Rev. Jim Jones committed suicide. The majority of the members of the People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana were from San Francisco. The community was reeling. This one horrific act of mass suicide involving between 913 and 1100 people was achieved by “drinking Kool-Aid” laced with cyanide.

Maybe I didn’t catch on to the level of cynicism in this phrase because of some long term PTSD over my own regional history. Maybe, for a while, I just forgot through my own participation in collective amnesia. But in repetition, I am remembering. As far as the press using this phrase – they have no excuse. While many covering this election may be younger, many are not. In either case we depend on the press to at least be able to look at their archives for the stories that inform our language. For the rest of us there needs to be more reflection. If you are old enough to remember Jonestown, please think twice before rattling off that phrase as merely a way of explaining something you find unfathomable. If you are not old enough to remember, the web is replete with information on this gruesome mass death and it is easy to research. All you have to do is Google “Jonestown”. As we fire-off opinions to each other on our wonderful blogosphere let us show more originality than the mainstream media we love to trash. Let us not repeat a phrase that has no business being used so casually, and has no business describing the informed support of historic candidates. Let’s not drink the Kool-Aid, and let’s not say we did.

What evidence is there to show that McCain can rip Obama to shreds? Everyone has been saying that Hillary has been using all of the GOP attack approaches however I am yet to see one of them that floored Obama. Absolutely NONE. Either she is using the GOP attacks or she aint. So far none of them work. So what makes anyone believe that they will work with McCain?

Secondly, some people speak of Obama in Messianic tones. Well if Obama can be seen in such a light how shall we see Rove then? It is such an odd thing that everytime we think we hear the word ROVE that the DEMS seem to run into this huge panic mode like as if the sky is falling. We seem to cower and whimper and start that rattling of teeth thing. What makes Rove so powerful that he can take an entire party and its supporters and send them scampering like chickens without heads?

Can it not be that Rove has now met his match in Obama? Is it not possible that Obama's approach can easily knock the wind out of Rove's sails?

Come on peoples.. give yourself a chance.. get some back bone and some spine and look to the Obama campaign and Obama himself to reap resounding success over McCain and put this ROVE whimpering to rest.. ONCE AND FOR ALL..

Quite frankly, I think Rove's success is based purely on a weak and timid democratic party and its weak and timid supporters, beyond this I think he is an average joe. The day the DEMS begin to fight back, Rove's credentials will come to naught. Look for this to happen when Obama starts to challenge McCain directly, once Hillary is gone.

Cheers

The cabal just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
The New York Times reports

Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity,
presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as
“military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give
authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues
of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of
objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used
those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the
administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York
Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and
military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of
the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war
policies they are asked to assess on air.

Before your eyes, without noticing, the "mangled" words of Obama are repeated, then distorted, memorialized in the MSM, until it is fictionalized into the consciousness of American voters.

If you believe what Hillary and the MSM are saying, Obama said people cling to guns and religion out of bitterness. 

Really?  When I listened to the tape, it seemed he said people cling to them as they make voting decisions (versus other issues where national politicians have continually lied and not delivered on.  These are the issues they can count on to be Heard- local political issues where they feel their vote can't be mortgaged by doublespeaking politicians). 

A huge difference, no?  One is a critique of a lifestyle choice based on insecurity, another is an observation on how voting decisions are made, especially when those votes contradict economic self interest and other common vote drivers.

So, a note to MSM, that is not what he said nor what he meant.  Its a lie, and most of the perpetrators know it, but that doesnt stop the message.  Bill Maher, for example who on this week's Real Time got it all wrong.   And those l

And keep your ears open.  This isnt unique to Obama, its an example of a larger and uglier point.  The distortion is so insidious and ingrained it becomes unnoticed.  More and more we are told how you should remember history and judge it (orwell rolls over in his grave).  As the media consolidation continues, and right wing strategies get more effective, the less the most observant of us notice the mutation from fact to propaganda. 

Im glad places like this help keep the establishment message accountable.  It helps me make sure people know that George S. is wrong- Obama didnt apologize for the comments themselves, just the phrasing, there was nothing to apologize for.

This is so wrong on so many levels if it hadn’t occurred during the
Cheney administration I would be really amazed at the audacity, as well
as really appalled. One of the hallmarks of fascism is the interlacing of government and corporate interests.  Another is government propaganda.

David Barstow has a really long piece up on the NYT web site reporting the Pentagon’s use of retired military brass, who serve as network TV “military analysts and often lobbyists for military vendors, as propagandists.  The Pentagon has provided these retired officers with classified information and taken them on “briefing” trips to Guantanamo, Iraq, and elsewhere to ensure they hew the party line when appearing as network analysts and the analysts often used the information obtained; and the analysts have often used the information so obtained and their access to Pentagon officials to further the interest of the military vendors they represent.

So the next time you listen to one of these “analysts”, remember many of them are mobbed up.

From Baldwin Park Democrat:
http://baldwinparkdemocrat.blogspot.com/2008/04/another-internet-swiftboat-attack-on.html

I wonder if any Muckraker could find out about the email signatories; are they real? What's thier story.

This interview provides further proof why ABC should have made Steph recuse himself. Notice, this is May 2007. And notice the points he brings up which Hillary later indeed did bring up. The interview started with the military, is the country ready for him, and yes, Obama was asked how much of his 'cool style' is because he is black.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA ON “THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS” from ABC News... MAY 13, 2007

...

STEPHANOPOULOS: When we sat down in Des Moines, I asked Obama where he got that confidence.

...

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think it comes from the set of experiences that I brought with me to this race.

As somebody who worked as a community organizer in Chicago, not knowing anybody when I arrived and being able to pull people together around the issues that folks were facing after they'd gotten laid off of work; the work that I've done as a civil rights lawyer and a constitutional law professor.

And then in the state senate, being able to get Democrats and Republicans together around tough issues like reforming the death penalty or expanding health insurance for kids -- those skills seem to have translated in Washington.

...Did Someone Say 3AM?...

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the most difficult crisis you've had to manage in your public life?

OBAMA: Well, you know, the truth is, in my public life as a legislator, most of the difficult tasks have been to build consensus around hard problems.

And what I think the country needs more than anything right now is somebody who has the capacity to identify areas of common interest, common good, build a consensus around it and get things done.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is part of the job. There's no question about it.

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know a big part of the job of a president is what you do in a crisis...

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the crisis you didn't expect.

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you never really ever had to deal with something like that, right?

OBAMA: Well, what I think is absolutely legitimate is that my political career has been on the legislative side and not in the executive branch.

Now, that's true for a lot of my colleagues, you know, who aren't governors.

And one of the things that I hope over the course of this campaign I show, is the capacity to manage this pretty unwieldy process of a political race. And one of the great things about the press is that they're going to be watching very carefully...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Every move you make.

OBAMA: ... every move you make, and to make sure that people have a sense of how I deal with adversity, how I deal with mistakes, who do I have around me to make sure that we're executing on the things that need to get done.

....


STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your heroes is Abe Lincoln. He was ruthless when he had to be. Can you be ruthless?

OBAMA: You know, I think that somebody who has arrived where I am out of Chicago politics has to have a little bit of steel in him.


I have not made a promise -- and I won't make a promise -- that I'm going to be able to perfectly balance the budget immediately.

What I can say is that we're going to pay as you go; that if I start a new program, I'll find a way to pay for it; if I want tax cuts, then I'm going to find a way to pay for them; and that, over the long term, we get a stable budget that is not simply running up the credit card on our children.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also said that with Social Security, everything should be on the table.

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising the retirement age?

OBAMA: Everything should be on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising payroll taxes?

OBAMA: Everything should be on the table. I think we should approach it the same way Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in 1983. They came together. I don't want to lay out my preferences beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It is not as difficult a problem as we're going to have with Medicaid and Medicare.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Partial privatization?

OBAMA: Privatization is not something that I would consider, and the reason is this: Social Security, I think, is -- that's the floor. That's the baseline. Social Security is that safety net that can't be frayed, and we shouldn't put at risk.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your candidacy brings the issue of race right to the top...

OBAMA: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... of the national conversation. You've been a strong supporter of affirmative action...

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and you're a constitutional law professor, so let's go back in the classroom. I'm your student, I say, "Professor, you and your wife went to Harvard Law School. You've got plenty of money. You're running for president. Why should your daughters, when they go to college, get affirmative action?"

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities.

I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.

So I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what we can say is that in our society, race and class still intersect, that there are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that in 25 years, affirmative action may no longer be necessary. Is she right?

OBAMA: I would like to think that if we make good decisions and we invest in early childhood education, improve K-12, if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a very cool style when you're doing those town meetings, when you're out on the campaign trail. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

OBAMA: That's interesting.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your friends told the New Yorker Magazine that "the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing black man." Did you turn down the temperature on purpose?

OBAMA: You know, I don't think it has to do with race. I think it has to do with when I'm campaigning, I'm in a conversation. And what I don't do when I'm campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause lines, because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process.

OBAMA: I want them to have some ability to walk through with me the difficult choices that we face.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We're spending $275 million a day, a day, in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: And I think that one of the problems with political speeches is that we all know what folks want to hear. We know who the
conventional, stereotypical enemies are on any given issue, and we have a tendency, I think, to play up to that. And I actually think that we're in this moment in history right now where honesty, admitting complexity is a good thing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about passion? How about anger? I mean, you've written about how you dealt with issues of anger. Don't you think sometimes voters need to see that too?

OBAMA: Oh, absolutely, and I think they do see it. Listen, the one thing that I don't think people are going to be able to accuse me of is not being able to give a fiery speech. I came onto the national scene after getting folks fired up pretty good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: But keep in mind, I'm not interested in bringing people together just for the sake of bringing people together. I'm not naive enough to think that if we all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" that somehow health care gets solved or, you know, education gets solved. Right now, what we need to make significant progress on these problems is to be able to build enough bridges to get things done.

So, I'm furious about the young men that I see standing on corners on the South Side of Chicago without hope, without opportunity, without prospects for the future. I am furious about the mothers I meet here in Iowa who are giving me hugs and telling me about their son who died in a war and asking, did their son die for a mistake? It breaks my heart. But what I know is that the only way we're going to solve the problem is not to assign blame. It's to say, "Here's a vision for the future that we can do something about."

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've had to ask for Secret Service protection awful early in this campaign. Were you reluctant?

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

OBAMA: I'm not an entourage guy. You know, up until recently, I was still, you know, taking my wife Michelle's grocery list and going
to the grocery store once in awhile. And so obviously it's constrained, but I'm obviously appreciate of their efforts. They're extraordinarily professional.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Durbin, your friend, who talked to the review board, said a lot of the threats that were coming in are racially motivated. How serious are they? How much are you told? How much do you worry about it?

OBAMA: You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it or considering the details of this. But just to broaden the issue, are there people who would be troubled with an African-American president? Yes. Are there folks who might not vote for me because I'm African-American? No doubt.

What I'm confident about, though, as I travel around the country, is that people are decent at their core in America. The vast majority of folks want to do the right thing.

If I don't win, it's not going to be because of my race. It's going to be because I didn't project a vision of leadership that gave people confidence. It's going to be because of something I didn't do as opposed to because I'm African-American.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've been thinking about running for president a long time. Your brother-in-law says he talked to you about it in the early '90s.

OBAMA: He might have brought it up. I'm not sure.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you dispute that?

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: You know, what's wonderful about this whole process is that everybody has -- everybody looks at me now through the lens of where I am now. You know, I had my high school teacher saying what a wonderful, studious guy he was. And I was goofing off the whole time, and they were calling up the principal. I think there's a lot of self-correction that takes place (inaudible).

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but there's one more. Valerie Jarrett, a good friend of the family says, you told her in your Senate race, "I just think I have some special qualities, and wouldn't it be a shame to waste them."

OBAMA: That, I think I probably did say.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What are they?

OBAMA: I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason.

OBAMA: And that's been in short supply over the last several years.

You know, I'm not an ideologue. Never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by sort of more radical or left-wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense, that believes that you make progress by sitting down, listening to people, recognizing everybody's concerns, seeing other people's points of views, and them making decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One final question. Everyone is going to be watching this on Mother's Day, and a lot of America is going to get to know a lot about you over the next year, but they're never going to know your mom. She passed away a little more than 10 years ago. What's the most important lesson she taught you?

OBAMA: She was the sweetest soul I've ever known, and I think that quality that I just talked about, the capacity to see the world through somebody else's eyes or to stand in their shoes, is what she gave to me in great abundance. And I think that capacity is what's needed right now in this moment.

There have been other moments in history where maybe some other skills were needed, but I think bringing the country together -- and, by the way, bringing the world together -- so that there's that sense of mutual recognition is something that I get directly from my mother. And I think her spirit acts powerfully on me throughout the course of this campaign.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

OBAMA: Thank you so much, George. I appreciate it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The roundtable is next with George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. And later, Brooke Shields.


Transcript exerpts from - Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times. The scoop from Washington May 31, 2007


George Stephanopoulos: "You have a very cool style . . . How much of that is tied to your race?"

... and Hillary is a PC. The NYT had an article about this back before Super Tuesday. It was a bit whimsical, but there is something to it.

For PC, one might also substitute 'Windows' or 'Microsoft', and instead of Mac we could use 'OS X' or 'Apple' without breaking the analogy.

Hillary is the established product, "no one got fired for choosing Microsoft". But like Microsoft, Hillary is no longer the hungry upstart, she is the wealthy behemoth whose number one asset is its brand name. And the times they are a-changin'. Like Microsoft, Hillary is stuck in the nineties.

Obama on the other hand is like Apple, not afraid to - dare I say it - Think Different. Like Apple, Obama appeals to the latte-sipping, Prius-driving liberal elitists - in other words, the well educated, professional, successful crowd. Obama is doing the unthinkable, taking on the Goliath by putting together a better strategy and a better product. People who try Obama don't want to go back to Hillary anymore because Obama is just so much more modern, slicker, powerful, sexier and better. Obama is the wave of the future.


The PC is the reliable, hard working computer with solutions for everything and 35 years of experience... yet people go for the Mac because it offers a better way to get things done. Windows is the system that knows better than its users (Vista UAC, anyone?) while Mac simply offers superior design and clean break from old baggage from the last century.

Here's hoping that the Windows establishment won't be able to cling to power and will be overtaken by the sleek felines (Leopard, Tiger et al.). Out with the old, in with the new!

Enough torturing metaphors. If you're a Mac-loving elitist, please recommend this post. But if you're not, you can recommend it too - big tent and all.

Hillary Clinton learned 'hard lesson' on health care, she wrote to Moynihan

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL

DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Wednesday, April 16th 2008, 4:00 AM

Hillary Clinton campaigns at the Newspaper Association of America convention in Washington Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton has long admitted to bungling universal health care in 1994, but a never-before-seen note she penned to the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan reveals how deeply she thought the failure hurt her — and the nation.

"If
I had listened to you about health care in 1994, I would be far better
off today - but more importantly - so would the nation's health care
system," Clinton wrote Moynihan in October 2000, near the end of her New York Senate campaign to succeed the retiring Moynihan.

It
was a confession in which the former First Lady seemed to acknowledge
that - if not for her refusal to listen to congressional leaders in her
own party like Moynihan - millions more Americans would likely have
become insured.

"All I can tell you is I learned my lessons the
hard way, which makes them indelible," Clinton said in the handwritten
note, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News.

Accepting
blame for the 1994 health care debacle is nothing new for Clinton,
especially lately, as she is again promising to provide health
insurance to all Americans as a candidate for President.

"If
you don't learn from your mistakes, you stop growing," the presidential
hopeful said last September as she unveiled her new health care plan,
which she has promised would be debated more openly than the
closed-door process she oversaw as First Lady in 1993 and 1994.

But her private note to Moynihan seemed to cast her failure, and its cost to the nation, in starker terms.

Back in 1994, Moynihan was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
and brokered a bipartisan bill that would have cut the number of
uninsured Americans in half - to roughly 20 million from 40 million.

But the Clintons refused to consider anything but 100% coverage, killing any chance of a compromise, said David Podoff, a former Senate Finance Committee economist who was intimately involved in negotiations.

"It was an opportunity lost," said Podoff, now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Since then, the problem has only gotten worse, with some 46 million Americans uninsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite
their rift, Moynihan backed Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. However,
the senator's widow, Liz, is now backing Clinton rival Barack Obama for President.

Clinton
now argues her current health care plan is superior to one offered by
Obama because it would be a surer path to universal coverage.

Hillary Clinton learned 'hard lesson' on health care, she wrote to Moynihan

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL

DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Wednesday, April 16th 2008, 4:00 AM

Dharapak/AP

Hillary Clinton campaigns at the Newspaper Association of America convention in Washington Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton has long admitted to bungling universal health care in 1994, but a never-before-seen note she penned to the late Sen. Daniel Moynihan reveals how deeply she thought the failure hurt her — and the nation.

"If
I had listened to you about health care in 1994, I would be far better
off today - but more importantly - so would the nation's health care
system," Clinton wrote Moynihan in October 2000, near the end of her New York Senate campaign to succeed the retiring Moynihan.

It
was a confession in which the former First Lady seemed to acknowledge
that - if not for her refusal to listen to congressional leaders in her
own party like Moynihan - millions more Americans would likely have
become insured.

"All I can tell you is I learned my lessons the
hard way, which makes them indelible," Clinton said in the handwritten
note, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News.

Accepting
blame for the 1994 health care debacle is nothing new for Clinton,
especially lately, as she is again promising to provide health
insurance to all Americans as a candidate for President.

"If
you don't learn from your mistakes, you stop growing," the presidential
hopeful said last September as she unveiled her new health care plan,
which she has promised would be debated more openly than the
closed-door process she oversaw as First Lady in 1993 and 1994.

But her private note to Moynihan seemed to cast her failure, and its cost to the nation, in starker terms.

Back in 1994, Moynihan was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
and brokered a bipartisan bill that would have cut the number of
uninsured Americans in half - to roughly 20 million from 40 million.

But the Clintons refused to consider anything but 100% coverage, killing any chance of a compromise, said David Podoff, a former Senate Finance Committee economist who was intimately involved in negotiations.

"It was an opportunity lost," said Podoff, now an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Since then, the problem has only gotten worse, with some 46 million Americans uninsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Despite
their rift, Moynihan backed Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. However,
the senator's widow, Liz, is now backing Clinton rival Barack Obama for President.

Clinton
now argues her current health care plan is superior to one offered by
Obama because it would be a surer path to universal coverage.

I've heard several people say they're afraid that even after June 3rd, Clinton will stay in and continue to campaign negatively. I'll grant that she might stay in, but it will no longer make sense for her to continue her negative campaigning (although some could argue that's already true). By that point, the only people's minds left to change are the unpledged delegates and possibly (but much less likely) the pledged delegates. It's neither fiscally nor politically wise for her to run a negative campaign, at least not out in the open. So, no matter what happens, I predict the worst of the intraparty fighting will be over June 3rd.

For Clinton supporters who might take issue with some of my assumptions above, feel free to replace the word <em>Clinton</em> with <em>Obama</em> where you find it appropriate.

Call it a fixation, but everywhere I look, I am seeing Tom Buffenbarger, head of the machinists union and ham-handed Hillary supporter.

In early February, Buffenbarger made an ass of himself, effectively calling voters from Coeur D'Alene, Savannah, and East St. Louis, "latte-sipping, birkenstock-wearing, Prius-driving elitists."  In late February, he was at it again, making hay out of the Goolsbee silliness, and asserting that Hillary is the only one you can trust to be consistent and honest on NAFTA.

Now, as jdw112 has been good enough to note, Buffenbarger's aide Rick Sloan has been circulating a tip sheet for Republicans regarding Ayers and Obama that would even make Lee Atwater blush. 

Thanks to his buffoonish and divisive antics, Tom Buffenbarger may have done more than any other single HRC supporter (aside from Bill and Hillary herself), to harm the Demcrats' chances in November.

Also, he has a hilarious and irresistible name. 

Therefore, I would like to try and revive my earlier campaign to start using his name as a verb (much as Dan savage noun-ified "Santorum").  Here goes.

Buffenbarger (BUH-fen-bar'gr) verb:
1. When one Democrat tries to slime another with the label "elitist," or otherwise employ pseudo-populist divide-and-distract wedge issue  Republican politics. 
2. To engage in desperate pre-election name calling.
"I will not be Buffenbargered by someone who just came back from spending two weeks in the Hamptons."

No longer the province of one or two nutty surrogates, Bufferbargering has become official HRC campaign strategy. Now that the 109 Million Dollar Woman
is trying to tag Obama with the label "elitist," it's time to take a stand and fight back against Bufferbargering!  As a wise man once said, "This aggression will not stand, dude."

To speak out against Buffenbargering in all its nefarious forms, consider hitting "recommend." (shameless.)  And please feel free to add your own examples of Buffenbargering that you've witnessed this silly-season.

Obama supporters: don't get overconfident.  Hillary still has a chance to turn this thing around.  This video shows how:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGyuYKlxIg

On May 3, voters in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District can help America awaken from eight nightmarish years of Republican lunacy posing as leadership.  Down here in the parishes along the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Democrat Don Cazayoux is in a runoff against ultra-rightwing Republican Woody Jenkins, a quintessential George W. Bush clone, for a seat that has been held by Republican Richard Baker for 21 years (1987-2008).

Don and his wife of 21 years, Cherie, are great people.  My wife, Mary Lou Kelley, and I have known Don since he was a grad student in Psychology at LSU where Mary Lou is a professor.  After earning a Masters degree, Don enrolled in Georgetown University Law School.  Upon graduation, he joined a law firm in Baton Rouge and later became a prosecutor in his hometown of New Roads, LA (Pointe Coupee Parish).  He was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1999.  Don has established himself as a strong advocate for children with a signature issue being protection from Internet sexual predators.  Because of his outstanding personal qualities, moderate politics, his background in criminal prosecution, and his strong advocacy for children and families, Don is a very strong candidate in a diverse but right-leaning district.  His election to Congress would be a great victory for the Democratic Party and would help the next President, whether it’s Barack Obama or  Hillary Clinton, build on the Democratic majority in Congress. 


To give you an idea of the importance of this race, twice last night on local television I saw an attack ad against Don
from Freedom’s Watch, a neocon 501c4 lobbying group whose core issue is
supporting the disastrous US invasion and occupation of Iraq.  It is
widely argued that Freedom's Watch has the  ultimate goal of a US
invasion of Iran!  Evidence quickly surfaced suggesting that this ad
was illegally coordinated by the NRCC,

All Democrats and progressive independents in a position to help Don Cazayoux win this runoff should do so.  As a supporter of Barack Obama, I believe it would give a strong boost to Sen. Obama if those of us in the Louisiana Obama network work to mobilize our friends to get out and vote for Don Cazayoux on May 3. However, supporters of Sen. Clinton have the same opportunity to help their candidate now and in the event that she wins the Presidency.  This is a great opportunity for all of us to work toward a common goal of the greatest import.  I would also like to mention that the Cazayoux campaign is looking for college students to be paid part-time campaign workers. This could be a good opportunity for some of you. You may email Don's campaign through his web portal (see above).  Feel free to contact me to discuss ways to coordinate our efforts.

All the best,

Owen

   What could be more drearily predictable, days before yet another primary, than the sight of Hillary morphing from Lady Macbeth into Alice in Wonderland.
   You could see the change coming at the so-called debate, where she was in familiar, vicious mode while sporting a make-up job in softening shades of pink and white, like the human equivalent of an Easter mint.
   "Knock on doors," she instructed a group of college students yesterday, while grinning her best charm-offensive grin, "and say, 'you know, she's really nice'. Or you could say it another way and say, 'She's not as bad as you think she is'."
   Actually, she's a lot worse than you think she is, but then, we're accustomed to Clinton lying.
   So accustomed that you've got to figure that Carl Bernstein nailed it when positing that a Hillary presidency, like her husband's, would be known for some good policy ideas offset by endless drama and dissembling.
   But truly scarey, as opposed to merely obscene, are the growing hints that hers would be an imperial presidency or, to put it in Hillary's terms, a wallow in "screw 'em" politics.
    For evidence, start with the punitive way her campaign deals with offending members of the MSM. Then consider her recent committment to expand "the American Security Umbrella" to cover Saudi Arabia and and to apply maximum force against the Iranian's if they attack the Saudi's or any of our Arab allies. Or to put it another way, she's bound and determined to defend any nation whose leaders contributed to the Clinton Library.
    But for now, Warrior Hillary has been retired in favor of Hillary-and-her-Mom and a self-deprecating, ostensibly humanized Hillary soon to be viewed chatting with Larry King. All this kinder, gentler stuff  is kind of creepy in light of what preceeded it: the ginned-up outrage, her stints as Bar Drinker and Annie Oakley.
    None of this will matter of course if she loses on Tuesday. But she'll probably win. And when she does, we better start talking about the ways in which a Hillary presidency would further decimate an already battered Constitution.

I think you are dead wrong about Lieberman, his take on the war is in line with many Democrats. With his stand up attitude, our candidates need to take note, because when the campaign begins in earnest, we can't go on with the wimpy ways exibited in the primary.
The Democrats need Joe.

Two interesting articles in tomorrow's NY Times:

Facing Obama Fund-Raising Juggernaut, Clinton Seeks New Sources of Cash
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/politics/20donor.html
"her big-dollar fund-raising apparatus that was once the envy of the political world is encountering obstacles as many of those in its regular networks of donors have reached the maximum on their personal contributions or grown tired of the relentless press for donations."


For Clintons, a Time to Find Truest Friends
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/politics/20loyalty.html

“It was just heartbreaking,” said Mrs. Larson, a Democratic National Committee member from Minnesota and more to the point, a superdelegate who had initially pledged herself to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. This was last Saturday, after the former first daughter learned that Mrs. Larson would be shifting her allegiance to Senator Barack Obama.

“She is a delightful young woman who loves her mother very much,” Mrs. Larson said. “She was really pushing me. She kept asking me why I was doing this. She just kept asking, ‘Why? Why?’ ”

c/o Brave New Films:

http://tinyurl.com/5oshwm

It is almost unsporting to consider Hillary Clinton's campaign arguments on their merits at this point.  Any concern about how her plaint du jour might play out for her own campaign -- let alone for her party – now has no place in her calculus.  There is no long term; only a desperate efforts to survive another week. 

But her effort to score a few points (at least with especially unobservant voters) by criticizing Obama as thin-skinned for striking back against the insipid and Limbaugh-ite tone of ABC's recent debate stands out, even for Hillary, for the degree to which it clashes with the interests of the Democratic Party and progressive policy objectives.  

 If anyone should be, and if actually is, aware of the perils of a national political media driven in equal measure by a desire for cheap entertainment  and right-wing propaganda, it is Hillary Clinton.  But set aside for a moment the irony of such a criticism coming from Hillary, who has herself frequently complained in  this very  campaign (often with very good reason) about the media's treatment of herself and  her family , and who maintains a deep distrust of the media’s role in the many, generally manufactured, scandals of the 1990s.  Set aside the fact that most fair-minded observers – including hardcore Hillary-ites like Ed Rendell – noted ABC’s abysmal performance.   Think for a moment about the idiocy of the Clinton campaign’s suggestion that a Democratic candidate should not strike back when a supposedly respectable  press outlet ventriloquizes Sean Hannity and behaves like the unholy spawn of Roger Ailes and Matt Drudge.  (Clinton herself, of course, prides herself on being tough and hitting back:   a “Press can Do No Wrong” rule she advocates for Obama violates the Clinton’s own rapid response principle – though we now see that the ultimate Clinton rule of politics is that rules do not  constrain the Clintons).

The notion that a Democratic candidate should just accept the media as it is, on pain of being dubbed unpresidential and a “whiner,” is sheer political poison for Democrats.   Most readers of this site will demand no proof that the media in this country is a very major part of what is wrong with our politics.   The trivialization of politics; the unexpurgated funneling of right-wing slurs; the inability or unwillingness to address complex economic or scientific issues; and the lack of meaningful wall between the interests of the corporate owners and the journalists they employ.   And the media bear a very great responsibility for some of the worst disasters of recent decades, including the election (sort of) and reelection of a consummately, almost freakishly unfit person to the Presidency; the propagation of global warming skepticism in the name of balance; and the selling of a disastrous and probably illegal war waged for phantom causes. 

As long as the media are constituted as they now are, progressive causes and ordinary citizens will systematically lose.  Criticizing the media; punishing the worst outlets by refusing bookings, and calling for new and better modes of communication are every bit as important to progressive causes as winning particular elections.   Obama was, of course, right to trash ABC for pushing trivial, manufactured issues at the expense of real ones.   If he is going to bring about real change in our politics, he will need to go further.  

Trashing the shallowness of the media can also be good politics.   There is a huge, only occasionally tapped reservoir of contempt for the media out there in the public – not just among “netroots” types with their reflexive jibes at the “MSM,” but among the great liberal and middle of the road masses of Americans.    Many people sense how lazy our news coverage has become, and respond with relief at the more sincere (and infinitely more entertaining) and often even more informative, humor news of Stewart and Colbert.   (Conservatives, of course, are well ahead in disciplining the news media – witness their success in creating an nearly unanimous drumbeat for the Iraq war, and, more recently, the boisterous response to the New York Times’ story on John McCain’s extremely sketchy relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman).

In suggesting that Obama was wrong – or wimpy – for criticizing (albeit quite mildly) the content-free nature of the ABC debate, Clinton was once again, playing right along with the worst right-wing script.  (Previously, of course, Fox News has questioned Obama’s fitness to face down foreign tyrants if he refuses to go on Fox News).   But she has it exactly wrong:   refusing to play by the absurd rules of our traditional media, and insistence on a new way of communicating about politics, will necessarily be a central part of Obama’s reformist movement, if it is to be successful.

Attacking the media, obviously, is not a good in itself.   It is often a tool of tyrants and totalitarians.  But our national media has become dysfunctional enough that pretending that it is neutral, thorough, and fair – in the name of avoiding accusation of shrillness or demagoguery – will no longer do.   Thoughtful criticism of the press from the mini-bully pulpit of the candidate rostrum is every bit as important as is thoughtful criticism of our other leading institutions.   And Obama seems well suited to advance arguments about the often pathetic way in which our politics and policy are covered in this country in a manner that does not seem like special pleading.  

The crowd at the Philly rally was the biggest one for Obama yet at around 35,000-most importantly he did it without Oprah.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/obama-draws-record-crowd-in-philadelphia/

Also there ws a bit of an 'after party'!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUkyvpA_a8

Good thing that crowd didn't have torches & pitchforks! I thought they sounded pretty rowdy at the rally, the video illustates it. I do wish they had one stop voting, we might have seen them march right out and vote.

http://www.talkleft.com/


For you trolls (Weaver, gotalife, etc.) this is more of a pro Hillary site in terms of news stories and comments.

The Hillary fan support there is nearly equals the Obama fan support here.

As reported by Marc Ambinder:

"At a high school here, she led the crowd, mostly students and in their parents, in a chorus of "Yes we can!"s."

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/

The Obama new kind of politics is the gop kind of politics. I have noticed a very disturbing trend on the Obama biased "progressive" media. After "bittergate" and "whinergate" they are desperately trying to smear the Clintons with recycled old news from the Huffinton Post er Obama Post.

Keep in mind, the owner of that blog was a neocon and her first web site was calling for the resignation of President Clinton. Markos of Daily Kos er Obama was gop and they are both making money claiming to be "progressives" but their attacks on the Clintons are gop like and helping the gop.

Their baseless accusations should be debated with facts, proof and solid evidence to back up their accusations. When I try to ask questions, the moderators will not post them. Of course, if you support Clinton at Daily Obama you will get banned.

This new kind of politics is the old kind of gop politics using their media to spread baseless lies with no proof. I thought we were better than the gop but I guess this new kind of politics proved me wrong.

I call on Dems to speak out against this tabloid journalism. It is dividing the Dem party and helping the gop. I am starting to think the owners of these blogs have that goal.

United we stand, divided we fall and "progressives" are the ones dividing the party not the Clintons.

The Final Democratic Debate leaves one rather curious about Motivation. What kind of bizarre uncurrents collected that night, to bring about such a Perfect Storm of inanity?

On some level, I’m sure Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos knew that since this was debate number eight-hundred and fifty, there was really very little left to discuss. What policy area had not already been covered, other than the nonsense?

It’s also conceivable that they had some kind of bet going with the other networks—Charlie Gibson at his weekly card game with Russert, Hannity, O’Reilly—

Gibson going, “I bet you we’ll have the worst debate of all—what if we talked about American Flags and Patriotism for ten minutes?”

And Russert says “You’re bluffing, you don’t have the balls.”

And Gibson just says “Try me.”

OR, maybe it was even more sinister than that! Charlie can’t possibly believe that most Americans are in HIS tax bracket, can he? Maybe the guy is planning, you know, a Lake-Michigan-Sized hot tub in his back yard in 2009, and he just couldn’t help himself with the Cap Gains soliloquy.

You know, I thought Stephanopoulos was one of our guys. What happened? Now he’s taking notes from Hannity, and he gets that amorous look in his eye whenever he says “George W. Bush”— 

I’m not ruling out the possibility that after his radio show on Wednesday Hannity murdered Stephanopoulos and wore his skin to the debate, but I wonder how he’s kept it from decomposing so far? I’m sure there are ways, and I’m sure Hannity knows about them.

It’s either that, or saddest of all, they’ve completely submitted to the Family Values 527 group that certainly has an office in one of ABC’s buildings—possibly Epcot—ABC FAMILY after all, being little more than the Young Republicans Channel. If that’s the case, Charlie Gibson ought to be wrapped in an American Flag and stuck with fifty label pins and set ablaze like a Monk next time Disney World has an anniversary.

Meanwhile, one gets the distinct impression that Hillary Clinton is somehow plotting a third-party bid—some kind of “Democratic Republicans” party—Ed Rendell can be the party chair, sending Clinton the nails with which to hand her grievances on the Democratic Party Door—some bizarre manifesto for Gun Toting, Values-voting, well, Republicans except-for-in-name. Clinton is pulling a Reagan, making the new Left what was once the center, and Richard Nixon gets more Liberal every day. 

For the Debate over Obama’s “bitter” remarks had a sinister undercurrent—the insinuation that your President should not be Smarter than You. The American Dream has a new lie: ANYONE can be President.

It’s important to be a good bowler, own guns, and never have any policy toward Muslims other than Bombing them.

First Obama was Too Black, then Not Black Enough, then Too Experienced, and now he’s Too Smart?

What will really be amazing is if voters in PA Buy Clinton’s “Rocky” story. She’s THE GREAT WHITE HOPE, not some amateur pugilist throwing punches in whatever available direction.

How fitting that all of this should take place in the Racial DMZ of Pennsylvania. 

Don’t let the inanity of the debate deceive you. This IS about Race, Power, and once again about Zen-Like ignorance and the Lie of the American Dream Reborn. The Parasite has found a new host—not the grouchy, Jimmy-Carter-esque scold that McCain is sure to become, but The “My Daddy Taught Me How to Shoot” Senator from New York. Even though the Working People have nothing to lose but their chains, they are being quickly persuaded otherwise.

Because where some see chains, others see a culture at stake—a violent, ignorant, arrogantly religious Way of Life that somehow deserves protection. HRC is the new Dubya, having anointed herself Pennsylvania’s personal vessel for denial.

Meanwhile the Pope two days ago praised the American Virtue of HOPE. Is an Obama endorsement on the way? Keep an eye out for that one.

About the only thing that puts a smile on George Bush’s face these days is the performance of his Supreme Court.

Once a co-equal branch of our federal government, the Supreme Court is now Bush’s personal toy. The Justice Department, which has a way of going after Democrats and liberal causes, serves up cases on a platter and the Supreme Court gladly puts their ultra-conservative stamp on them (disregarding such inconvenient standards as constitutionality or precedent).

The love affair between Bush and the Supreme Court began in the aftermath of the 2000 election, when the court ignored all precedent and handed Bush the presidency.

Yesterday, the Bush Supreme Court was at it again.

This time they gave the thumbs up to lethal injections as a form of execution.

Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, and opposed only by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter, the court ruled that the three-step method of murder: sedate, paralyze and kill was an appropriate procedure even though there was substantial evidence that the sedate part of the formula wasn’t always successful.

George Bush, the man who broke the modern day record for executions during his tenure as governor of Texas, must have thrilled with the work of his henchmen on the court.

As Governor, Bush presided over 152 executions, by far the most in the modern era. For some reason, the only death warrant he refused to sign was that of mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas. Lucas had confessed to over 3,000 murders, but it is believed that he only killed about 350.

The great irony is that the decision came down on the eve of the Pope’s visit. Bush fawned over the Pope as a man of God and peace. The Pope is on  record as being against our presence in Iraq and against the death penalty.

Of course, the Pope is not alone in his opposition to the death penalty. Virtually the entire world has banned it. There is no death penalty in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia. If you want to see kind of company we keep, look at the top six